BANGKOK, Thailand – A lingering legacy of the Vietnam War emerged from the jungles of Laos on Wednesday, as hundreds of members of the Hmong hill tribe minority surrendered to the communist government after decades on the run.

The group is the latest of several ragtag bands of surrendering Hmong – remnants of a guerrilla army that served a pro-American government before it fell to the communists in 1975.

The surrendering group’s chieftain, Moua Tua Ter, accompanied the 405 people – mostly children – to Ban Ha village in Phoukout district before returning to the jungle with a few of his guerrillas, U.S.-based Fact Finding Commission said in an e-mail.

The group appeared to be “very hungry and tired,” it said. The villagers served them a meal of rice and pork.

The newcomers became nervous and the mood turned sour when 50 Lao government soldiers who showed up a few hours after the surrender separated the Hmong from the villagers. The Hmong were loaded onto five military trucks and soldiers said they would be taken to the district capital, where there is an army camp.

Although the Hmong served loyally in what was called the CIA’s “Secret War” in Laos – Washington did not officially acknowledge its military presence there at the time – they were all but abandoned after their communist enemies, the North Vietnamese-backed Pathet Lao, came to power.

More than 300,000 Laotian refugees, mostly Hmong, fled after the takeover, with many resettling in the United States. Thousands stayed behind, some adjusting to the new hard-line regime and others staying in the jungle, where they faced sweeps by government soldiers.

Over the years, roving bands of Hmong guerrillas retreated farther into the jungles with their families, facing starvation and continued military pressure. In recent years, some have turned themselves in, while others have sneaked into Thailand to seek refuge. Thailand is seeking to repatriate Hmong who entered illegally.

Thousands more Hmong are believed still in the jungle.

Details of Wednesday’s surrender were provided by the Fact Finding Commission, which lobbies on behalf of the Hmong and is in touch with them through satellite telephones. Though news of the surrender could not immediately be independently verified, information provided in the past by the commission has proven to be accurate.

Asked about Wednesday’s mass surrender, a Lao Foreign Ministry spokesman said Hmong are constantly leaving remote areas to be resettled.

“Thousands of Hmong are moving because we are having a lot of development activities,” said Yong Chanthalansy, director-general of the ministry’s press department, speaking by phone from Laos.

Officials with London-based human rights group Amnesty International said independent monitors should have access to those who surrender. “The last time a similar group emerged from hiding in the jungle, they were taken to an army camp and held there incommunicado for months in very harsh conditions, according to reliable information given to Amnesty International,” Brittis Edman, a researcher for the group said in an e-mail. “We are hoping this will not happen again.”

The two founders of the Fact Finding Commission, Ed and Georgie Szendrey of Oroville, Calif., saw a similar surrender last year of about 170 people, also from Moua Tua Ter’s group. The return was peaceful and the returnees were resettled.

Nevertheless, independent aid agencies and foreign diplomats were not allowed access to that group, and the Szendreys said many later fled to Thailand because of poor living conditions.

Little reliable information about the jungle-based Hmong was available until late 2002, when two journalists working for Time magazine made contact through the Fact Finding Commission with Moua Tua Ter’s group and came out with startling photographs and stories of their desperate existence.

Amnesty International has accused the Lao government of gross human rights violations in persecuting the Hmong. The Lao government denies the accusation.

Online: To see the Time magazine article and photo essay “Welcome to the Jungle,” go to www.time.com and search the site for “Hmong.”

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